Shortly after the tragedy of 9/11 my father warned me of the need to change my sonĖs name to Fred, Sam or Joe. Because as my father stated, A name like Malik will get stopped at the airport every time. My eight year old son, whose full name is Malik Isaiah Williams, is not in immediate jeopardy of being stopped by airport security for suspected terrorism, however, such is not the case for Aquil Abdullah.
Mr. Abdullah is a 29-year-old African American who was 33-hundreths of a second away from making the 2000 Olympic team in rowing. He is the only African American male to win either a national single sculls rowing championship or a race at the prestigious Henley Royal Regatta in England, but his nom de famille makes him a terrorist suspect.
Recently, while on his way to Seattle from Newark, New Jersey the reservation clerk asked Mr. Abdullah to step aside. Soon the police had arrived and Mr. Abdullah was about to miss his flight. It took Mr. Abdullah nearly 24 hours from the time he had arisen in Princeton, NJ to the time he arrived in Seattle. Abdullah was on a no-fly list. According to Andrew Kurpat, a police officer with the Port Authority in Newark, the no-fly list is anyone with a common Muslim name has to be checked out to see if itĖs an alias, to see if heĖs on a terrorist list. For his part, Mr. Abdullah is quite accommodating about the entire matter. I can understand the concern, Abdullah said. It Ės legitimate, of course, and some of my friends are angrier about the name profiling than I am, but I do wish the authorities could be quicker about the check.Ó I am sure he does, most people that I know do not have 12-24 hours of free time to spend awaiting the outcome of a terrorist investigation.
During Secretary of State Colin PowellĖs recent briefing at the United Nations, I recall watching with utter amazement the level of sophistication that is at the United StatesĖ disposal as it intercepted phone calls in Iraq. Yet, intelligence technology has not reached that point where background checks for terrorist activities cannot be conducted in less than 12 hours? Moreover, the treatment of Mr. Abdullah serves as but another reminder of the difficulty that many people of color continue feel in this country when it comes to full citizenship with all rights and privileges thereunto and pertaining.
Perhaps I missed it, but I do not recall such precautions taken for anyone who possessed the last name Mc Veigh. Was this type of surveillance conducted during WWII for those who had family names of German origin? We know all too well that such egregious measures were taken against Japanese brothers and sisters. Ironically, not one Japanese American was convicted of any crimes of espionage during WWII, the same could not be said for those of German ancestry. But it was Japanese who lived under a cloud of suspicion, who had the property taken, who were the brunt of a series of racist movies the furthered isolated them from society. The cyclical nature of history has made us privy once again to government-sanctioned discrimination, which it believes is necessary to keep the America safe.
From the American Revolutionary War to the present African Americans have valiantly defended this nationĖs honor only to be greeted by the welcoming committee of discrimination and second-class citizenship. Sometimes the welcoming committee even brought the rope by which they could be lynched. Detaining Aquil Abdullah simply because of his last name does bring out the best in America, if anything it speaks to the worst in us. It harkens back to a time when fear, paranoia and ignorance was held to a higher standard than, acceptance, understanding, and enlightenment. Unfortunately, detaining Mr. Abdullah for nearly 24 hours while in route to represent his country serves as a reminder that perhaps we are not that enlightened after all.